don by John Day and Willyam Seres'*- a discourse between a ploughman and a Catholic priest upon the significance of mass and the feast of Corpus Christi, in which John Bon, by his questions, objections and counter-remarks, especially attacks the doctrine of transubstantiation, and in the end drives the priest off the field-is, on the other hand, almost too short, in any case is devoid of all drastic animation, and written in too serious and dry a tone.† The new Enterlude, called Theresytes,' written in 1537, is indeed distinguished by a certain striving towards a more finished style, and a greater variety of subject-matter; the action also, by possessing a more independent significance, comes more into the foreground, but it scarcely equals Heywood's Interludes in spirit and humour, or in the cleverness of his dialogue. Hence, the only play of interest as regards the progress in the development of the English drama, is one published between 1530 and 1540, called on the title-page a comedy 'in maner of an enterlude,' which describes 'the beauty and good properties of women as well as their vices and evil conditions.' + In this case an attempt is made to work out the serious subject with a moral tendency in the style of Heywood's Interludes. At the same time it is the first play of this species that contains a kind of plot, a connected and progressive, although a very short and simple, action; the play turns upon the rejected love of young Calisto for Melibea, and upon the manner in which, with the assistance of a bawd, he received the girdle of his beloved-the symbol of her chastity-from her own hands in a moment of sympathy and thoughtlessness, and concludes by the audience receiving a moral exhortation from old Danio, the father of the heroine.

It has no date, and was reprinted in the form of the original by 'Smeeton, Printer, 148, St. Martin's Lane,' also without a date. This piece was most kindly lent to me by Th. O. Weigel, from his valuable collection of works belonging to English literature.

+ According to the concluding words of the priest-in which he remarks that many are now returning to the old way, and where in earlier times the mass was hated and despised, 'messe in Latin' are again introduced the pamphlet, which had probably never been performed (and indeed was probably never intended to be acted), must have been written in the reign of Edward VI., or in that of Mary the Catholic. Collier, ii. 408 ff.

From this last example it is evident that the Interludes, written in Heywood's style, aimed at giving these popular scenes from real life, more action and a deeper and more significant character. This was a right instinct. The

great object now was to combine the elements of the drama which already existed, but were still separated and, as it were, torn asunder, into one organic whole; to blend the idealism of the Mysteries and Moralities, and the general form in which they represented the subject, with the principle of individuality and of living, natural reality, which was what Heywood had comprehended, and had carried out in a one-sided way; also, to exhibit the ideal character of the general religious and moral conception of life and the world, in the life and actions of individual, actual men; and lastly to do justice to the personal character and to the freedom of will in the individual, without giving up the idea of a divine government of the universe (such as was represented in the Mysteries), and the principle of a higher moral necessity founded upon the influence of general moral forces, such as was exhibited in the Moralities. In short, if the representation of a complete historical, and, therefore, truly dramatic action was to be attained, then the action-which in Heywood's Interludes appeared as the free but accidental and insignificant action of the individual, in the Mysteries as a supernatural and divine fact, and in the Moralities as the result of general moral conditions and of the moral necessity working in them-would have to combine within itself all these elements, and to represent them as the result of their reciprocal interaction.

CHAPTER IV.

THE POINTS OF TRANSITION TO THE REGULAR DRAMA.

EVERY one of the above three forms of the English drama accordingly, starting with its own principle and from its own ground, endeavoured to appropriate the other two elements. While the Interludes strove to attain this in the manner described, some new Miracle Plays, or at least plays written in their style after the time of Henry VIII., no longer kept as strictly to Biblical subjects, but treated these more freely, and entered the domain of history by all kinds of allusions and deviations. The first impulse to this was the great interest which the ecclesiastical movements of the time excited in all minds. Thus, for instance, the four extant religious dramas of John Bale, (Doctor of theology and Vicar of Thorndon in Suffolk), which he had printed abroad in 1538--and to which he adds the name of interlude,' although they are partly tragedies, partly comedies, and are directly connected with the ancient Miracle plays, both as regards style and character-are evidently written with the intention of promoting the Reformation and of attacking the abuses of the Catholic Church. His Tragedy or Enterlude,' under the title of God's Promises,'* shows in a series of scenes, how the foundations of man's life, from the fall of Adam down to the birth of Christ, did not consist in man's own virtues and righteousness, but in God's promises, God's forbearance and grace; an epilogue, spoken by the poet himself, expressly defends the doctrine of justification by faith and attacks the Catholic doctrine of justification by works.† His 'Comedy, Christ's Tem* Printed in Dodsley's Collection, i. 9-42; and in Marriott, p. 223 ff. This piece is otherwise very undramatic. Every one of the seven acts consists of a discourse between God and one of the principal characters of the Old Testament, the first with Adam, the second with Noah, and then in succession with Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah and

tation,' on the other hand, is full of attacks on the рарасу, on fastings, the withdrawal of the Bible, and other abuses in the Catholic Church.* It may be assumed that the rest of his dramatic productions also, of which a great many have been lost, were of the same character. This tendency seems also by degrees to have affected the old popular pageants. At all events in 1561, the Scottish people, in celebrating Queen Mary's arrival, gave religious plays, in which they represented the awful judgment of the Almighty against idolatry, in the downfall of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram. Lord Randolph, the English ambassador at the Scottish court at the time, calls these plays 'pageants' in his report, and gives one to understand that they proceeded from hatred against the Catholic form of worship, and that, in reality, they were throughout an attack on the same.† Also, in 'the Pretie new Enterlude, both pithie and pleasant, of the story of King Daryus, beinge taken out of the third and fourth chapter of the third booke of Esdras' there are some strong invectives against the papacy.

The last play at the same time indicates the other path pursued by the religious drama in order to arrive on the actual ground of human actions and sufferings, having started from Sacred History and the divine actions there depicted. Writers of plays kept more to the Old Testament, and more especially worked out those stories in which the divine guidance of earthly affairs was not so prominent. Thus, for instance, the above mentioned King Daryus' dramatises a single historical feature reported in the third book of Ezra, and in the Historie of Jacob and Esau, taken from the twenty-seventh chapter of the first booke of Moses' (which was printed in 1568, but was very likely written ten years previously), there is no divine interference John the Baptist. The subject is always the same: God's wrath at the perpetual recurrence of the dominion of sin in Israel, the prayers of God-fearing men for the sinful people, and God's gracious promises. Every act ends with the chanting of a religious antiphonia, to which an English translation is added. The diction is indeed more dignified and more refined, but devoid of animation.

* Collier, ii. 239 ff.

† See Raumer: Beiträge zur neueren Geschichte, etc., i. 13. Collier, p. 245 f.

with events, no admixture of symbolical and allegorical figures; the piece moves purely in the natural world of man and of historical reality.* It is probable also that even Ralph Radcliffe's lost dramas-which he began to compose in the year 1538, and had performed, probably by his pupils at Hitchen in the refectory of an abolished Carmelite monastery, and most of which were likewise founded on subjects from the Old Testament (Job's Sufferings, the Burning of Sodom, etc.)-were worked out in a similar style. The object was to combine the Miracle Play and the Morality by furnishing the historical subject from the Old Testament with allegorical figures, as in the case of Moralities, partly in order to give the particular story a more general moral significance, partly in order that, by introducing Vice' with his jokes and pranks, the subject might be enlivened. Thus in the above mentioned 'King Daryus,' there are represented, in addition to Vice (who acts under the name of Iniquity), the allegorical figures of Constancy, Equity, Charity, etc. And in another piece, printed in 1561, which treats of the story of the Queen Esther, we find, in addition to some characters that are free inventions of the author, not only the allegorical figures of Pride, Adulation, and Ambition, but Vice appears as the actual clown, or, rather, in place of Vice, we have a jester under the name of Hardy Dardy, whose coat even, as it seems, marks him the fool by profession; he carries on his jokes quite freely and frankly, without any allegorical disguise.†

A similar mixture of Miracle Play, Morality and History is, in my opinion, to be found also in that remarkable but unfortunately lost play, which was performed at Greenwich as early as 1528 in the presence of Henry VIII., Cardinal Wolsey, the French ambassador, and other great lords. It was written in Latin by John Rightwise, Master of St. Paul's School, and its object evidently was to represent the Reformation as a work of lies, of unbelief and of sedition. In this play there appeared: Luther as a monk, and Catherine von Bora in a dress of red silk, such as was then worn by the women of Spires; Religio, Ecclesia, and Veritas; the apostles Peter, Paul, and James; an *Collier, l.c., p. 247 ff. † Collier, ii. 253 ff.